Nick Ross is a veteran broadcaster and journalist, an international conference moderator and campaigner.
He began broadcasting reporting on the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland (‘the well-informed English journalist, nearly an oxymoron when it comes to writing about Ireland’), reported and presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship news shows Today, World at One, PM and The World Tonight along with Radio 4’s long-running phone-in Call Nick Ross and the inquiry series The Commission. As a reporter on BBC TV’s Man Alive he produced and directed The biggest epidemic of our times which is credited with preventing thousands of deaths and injuries on Britain’s roads, and he was launch presenter for the UK’s first early morning TV show, BBC Breakfast Time, Sixty Minutes and for the consumer series Watchdog. He presented A Week in Politics for Channel 4 along with the BBC’s party conference coverage and live coverage of parliament, Westminster with Nick Ross. He remains best known for his two-and-a-half decade work on the long-running crime appeal show Crimewatch.
Away from broadcasting, in some cases inspired by it, Nick Ross has been closely involved in bioethics, the NHS, healthcare, medical research and the promotion of UK science, and in community safety most notably in crime prevention, policing and fire and rescue. He currently chairs the board of National Fire Chiefs Council, is president of the British Security Industries Association and of the Campaign for Evidence-Based Healthcare. He was awarded a CBE for his services to charity and crime prevention and remains a visiting professor at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science (which he founded), is an honorary doctor of Queen’s University Belfast and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons.
Nick Ross was for many years one of Britain’s most-trusted broadcasters – once described as a ‘national treasure’ – and is now a writer, non-executive director, conference moderator and campaigner for community safety and evidence-based public policy.
He become a household name in the UK launching breakfast TV, Watchdog and Crimewatch and flagship radio programmes including World at One, PM and The World Tonight. Among his long-running series were Call Nick Ross, The Commission, A Week in Politics and Westminster with Nick Ross. He has written and directed award-winning documentaries and was a lobby correspondent. He has retired from full-time broadcasting but still contributes to radio and TV and publishes across a wide range of subjects for newspapers and other journals.
Away from broadcasting Nick Ross was highly-regarded as a conference moderator for governments and companies around the world.
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He is a veteran campaigner for community safety, credited with a major influence on Britain’s dramatic cut in road deaths. For years before the Grenfell Tower tragedy he lobbied ministers for better fire-safety in social housing, and in 2023 he was appointed chair of trustees of the National Fire Chiefs Council.
He has a long involvement with healthcare policy and bioethics, advising successive governments and medical royal colleges and was a director of one of the UK’s biggest NHS trusts. He promotes science and campaigns for evidence-based public policy, is President of the British Security Industries Association, and founded the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London where he is a visiting professor and honorary fellow.
